Buttery – originally Ayerst Hooker – was third or fourth generation in a well-regarded firm of London picture cleaners, restorers and dealers operating from the 1820s to 1962. Charles Buttery (1812–1878) was established by 1839 in Greek Street, Soho, and was employed by the National Gallery as a cleaner/restorer from 1858. He was succeeded by his son Horace (1846–1900), who also worked for the National Gallery, as a picture cleaner for Queen Victoria, and began the firm’s long relationship with the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Ayerst Hooker, son of Edward Hooker, was born in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. By 1881 the family were in Limehouse, London, and by 1891 he had become assistant to Horace Buttery whose premises were by then at 173 Piccadilly.
Ayerst’s son, Horace Ayerst Buttery (1902–1962), successfully carried on the business after his father’s death, which occurred at his country house in Sussex on 29 March 1929. His London addresses were then ‘Launcells’, Templewood Avenue, Hampstead and 177 Piccadilly. He left estate of nearly £105,000 (or about £4.8 million in 2023 terms), with his widow as executrix and prime legatee, though she herself died in 1930.
The Buttery firm’s work is well covered in the National Portrait Gallery online listing of ‘British Picture Restorers, 1600–1950.’ Ayerst Hooker Buttery’s activities as a painter are less known, probably because his will directed that all his own paintings and drawings still held at his death, barring those chosen as mementos by named relatives and friends, were to be destroyed.
There are only two on Art UK. One is a rather wooden 1895 copy of J. C. Thompson’s 1846 portrait of the Reverend D. William Buckland (Oxford Museum of Natural History). The other is a good ‘Life study’ of the head of an unidentified Chelsea Pensioner, in the Royal Hospital collection, which bears that title and his signature ‘AHB / 1894’ on the back. Since he was then just known as Hooker, this was probably added later but the letter forms match his writing. It was presented in 1969 by Miss Margaret Anne Teresa Baker (1901–1983), live-in housekeeper to Buttery’s son Horace. She is presumed to have inherited it among other items left to her on his death in 1962, though it is not specifically identified in his will.
Summarised from Art UK's Art Detective discussion 'Could the artist be Ayerst Hooker Buttery? Who is the Chelsea Pensioner?’
Text source: Art Detective
